“Definitely the bad news,” I said.
She’d been off grilling the hotel manager and his perfectly coiffed hair about their security cameras while I questioned the member of the kitchen staff who took the room-service order. Our rendezvous point was the lobby, which had been kept clear by the police, save for the few guests actually there in the afternoon who had come down from their rooms looking for answers. Why are there so many cop cars and news vans parked in front of the hotel?
Elizabeth let out a sigh. “The security cameras are nonoperational.”
That was bad news, all right. “How is that possible?” I asked.
“Long story,” she said. “Apparently it involves a certain movie star who was here with a woman who wasn’t his wife.”
“This place is just hook-up central, isn’t it?”
“More than we know,” she said. “Turns out someone on the security staff tried to sell footage of them in the elevator to TMZ and the movie star got wind of it. TMZ couldn’t buy the footage because it was stolen property, but the star threatened to sue the hotel anyway. Next thing you know, the owners had the cameras in all the public areas disconnected.”
“That’s a bit of an overreaction, no?”
“Or a stroke of marketing genius,” she said. “It seems word got around to some of the hotel’s high-end clientele, presumably the horniest ones.”
“Do you think—”
“That our killer knew he wouldn’t be recorded? It’s possible.”
“I’m afraid to ask,” I said. “What’s the other bad news?”
“The room-service guy,” she said. “Right after he yelled for help he somehow decided to snap a picture and post it on Instagram.”
“Christ, please tell me it wasn’t a selfie,” I said.
“No, but the damage is done.”
I knew exactly what she meant. As soon as that picture went viral—and there was no doubt it would—all bets were off. So, too, was any agreement with Grimes. I could see his headline now. CITY IN PANIC! WHO WILL BE THE NINE OF DIAMONDS?
The mayor was really going to love that.
“What about the room-service order?” asked Elizabeth. “Anything?”
“At first, nothing,” I said. “The order was Champagne and strawberries, and it was definitely a man who ordered it.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s our guy, though. We don’t even know for sure that he’s a he.”
“We do now,” I said. “The woman who took the order remembered that the guy first asked for steak and eggs. But it’s a vegan restaurant, so no steak and no eggs. Still, why order that in the first place?”
“Because he simply forgot,” said Elizabeth.
“I thought the same thing, and then it dawned on me.”
“What?”
“Me,” I said. “From the start, this guy’s wanted me involved in the investigation. He knows my background studying serial killers and wants to show me that he knows. So he tries to order steak and eggs. In fact I bet he knew all along that it was a vegan restaurant.”
Elizabeth shot me a blank stare.
“Steak and eggs,” I repeated. “That was Ted Bundy’s last meal.”
“Okay, let’s put aside how weird it is that you know that,” she said. “What does it mean? Is he actually telling us anything?”
“I’m not sure, but at least it’s not bad news,” I said. “He’s talking to me, and as long as he does there’s no telling what else he might—wait; what are you looking at?”
She was squinting up at the mezzanine balcony, which hung over the lobby like one of Salvador Dalí’s clocks.
Something had caught her eye. Make that someone.
“Get down!” Elizabeth yelled.
Chapter 36
I HAD around six inches and sixty pounds on her, but Elizabeth took me down faster than a house of cards in a hurricane. We crashed to the floor, her arms wrapped around me, the wind knocked entirely out of my lungs as I landed with a horrific thud on my back. Is that one of my ribs that just snapped?
The only way I thanked her for saving my ass was that I cushioned her fall. Chivalry is not dead…and neither were we.
Not yet, at least.
The shots continued, bullets screaming past us. Even louder were the screams of the guests in the lobby who had come down from their rooms. To think they wanted to know about the commotion outside.
“This way!” said Elizabeth.
She’d rolled off me onto her stomach and into a crawl, quickly heading toward the shelter of a nearby couch. I fell in line behind her on my hands and knees, trying my best to keep up and keep low. Never had ten feet looked so far away.
More shots. They were relentless, one after another. Each getting closer. Too close. Right before my eyes a glass coffee table exploded, the shards raining down on top of us.
He had us lined up now; crawling wasn’t going to cut it.
Change of plans.
“Run!” shouted Elizabeth.
We both pushed off the floor, sprinting the rest of the way. Screw going around the couch, we hurled ourselves over it. No points for style, but we were still breathing.
More like gasping. The adrenaline felt like a clamp on my throat as we plastered ourselves against the back of the couch.
“You all right?” asked Elizabeth, reaching for her semiautomatic. It was a Glock 19, one of the first guns my father taught me how to shoot.
“Yeah,” I said. “You?”
“Just peachy.”
“Did you see him?” I asked.
“I saw his hand…and the gun,” she said. “That’s it.”
That was enough for me. “Thanks,” I said.
She checked her clip. “Yeah, well, you’re no good to me dead, Reinhart.”
“A simple ‘You’re welcome’ would’ve sufficed.”
The shooting had stopped, but that didn’t mean it was over.
“Give me your shoe,” she said.
I hesitated. My shoe?
“Hurry!” she said.
Shoe first, ask questions later. I pulled off one of my loafers, handing it to her.
“Ferragamo,” she said, glancing at the label on the insole. “Nice.” She promptly tossed it high over her shoulder as though it were a piece of trash.
No, check that. As though it were a clay pigeon.
Faster than you can say “Pavlov’s dog,” the shot rang out. First movement and an itchy trigger finger will do it every time.
He missed, though. The only sound after the shot was my shoe hitting the ground on the front side of the couch.
“Quick, give me your other shoe,” said Elizabeth, sticking out her hand.
Seriously? “Are you trying to let him hit it? Why does he get a do-over?” But I knew what she was doing. Better my shoe than her head. “Here,” I said, giving it to her.
She launched it even higher this time, quickly turning to take a peek over the back lip of the couch. The only sound, though, was my second shoe hitting the ground unscathed.
“Shit,” said Elizabeth. Translation: He was gone.
The next second, she was, too.
Chapter 37
ELIZABETH PEELED around the couch, running toward the stairs leading up to the mezzanine. There was no stopping her. Or what followed.